Java: The Friendly Coffee Drinking Dinosaur
by M.L. Shards
Summary: Conner enrolls in Computer Science in order to earn the last credit he needs to graduate and enlists a very reluctant Ethan to teach him. The results? Computer crashes and angry computer geeks galore...


Ethan stared at Conner. "You want me to **what**?"

"I want you to teach me this Java stuff." Conner repeated, tapping the tips of his fingers against the shiny white textbook. At the doubtful look he got from the Blue Ranger, he wasn't sure if he was speaking Italian or something…

"I don't supposed by any small chance you could be talking about the coffee?" Ethan asked timidly, silently praying to whatever god there was, to spare him.

"Not, the one with all the weird words and numbers." Conner sighed holding the textbook up to Ethan. "Trust me, this wasn't my idea. I'm supposed to learn this outside of school and then write the tests and exams and stuff in my spares."

"Then who had this lovely idea?" Ethan asked, clenching his teeth and curling his hands into fists.

"Come on, dude. I need one more credit to graduate this year and it was either this or Science Club."

"And why, pray tell did you feel the need to choose Computer Programming over Science Club?" Ethan groaned.

"Me and chemicals? I figure, at least with computers, you can buy new ones. Science labs are a whole lot more expensive." Conner replied setting the textbook back down in his lap. "Since you know so much about computers, I thought you could help me so I don't end up crashing this thing and end up having Hayley yell at me…" he paused thoughtfully. "She's scary when she's mad…"

Ethan let out another groan and flopped into the blue, cushioned computer chair, weighing his options. They didn't look good.

On one hand, he could tell Conner to go to the science club. That would probably end with no school, no Black Dino Ranger, no Red Dino Ranger, and no Devin.

He could not help Conner, and risk him crashing all the computers at Hayley's. That would mean no Hayley's, no Red Dino Ranger, and quite possibly no Blue Dino Ranger, if a certain pissed off redhead figured out who refused to help the Red Dino Ranger in the first place...

Or he could help him, and even with a small glimmer of hope, get the jock with half of a working brain to appreciate what he enjoyed. But this option also had the downside of the Blue Dino Ranger going insane, and then there would still be no Red Dino Ranger, and very angry Yellow and Black Rangers…

Either way, he and Conner were screwed.

"Okay, I'll help you." Ethan conceded taking the textbook out of Conner's hands. "But you've got to try, okay?"

"Fine."

"And if we have to stay here passed ten o'clock, you better start buying me coffee."

"Errr… okay…"

Ethan smiled as the terms were agreed on. "Good. Now, let's start with the basics, shall we? What is Java?"

"Coffee… and some computer thingy?"

Ethan rolled his eyes. "It's an Object-Oriented programming language."

"Riiiight, and that means so much to me." Conner replied sarcastically

"Hey, you wanted help-"

"Sorry, what does that mean?" Conner amended, cursing himself for not being able to secure a place in Grade 12 Human Geography. It would have to be better than this, but of course it had to be full…

"Well… the simplest way to explain it I guess is that it allows you to create groups of related data."

"So why doesn't it say that?"

Frowning and deciding that perhaps just getting Conner to start doing something and worry about explaining it later might be the way to go, Ethan flipped through a few chapters, landing on the first page of Chapter 3. It showed a group of programming code, with a step-by-step explanation of what everything was.

"Just start with that, okay?" Ethan sighed, turning to go order a milkshake. He was going to need sugar if he was going to have to put up with teaching Conner how to not blow up a computer.

It wasn't long before he heard a familiar whining sound. "Eeeethaaaan…"

Grumbling as he turned around and went back to the computer, he looked at Conner angrily. "I've been gone for two seconds, the book tells you what to do, what problems could you possibly have already?"

Conner frowned. "Where do I put it?"

"What?"

"The coding thingy! Where do I write it?"

"Oh…" Ethan replied, taking the mouse from Conner and clicking open _Notepad. _"Just use that."

"Ohhhkay."

It soon became apparent that this was not going to work and that Conner and Computer Science were never allowed to mix because even when he go it correct, something went wrong. While Conner had miraculously gotten the code correct, Ethan hadn't considered the fact Hayley might have locked down all of the computers in the café to prevent people from messing around with the programming (cough, cough, Ethan, cough), so Conner's attempt at debugging made the computer crash. Luckily however, Hayley hadn't noticed this fact, and both Conner and Ethan were able to sneak away without her noticing.

"Why couldn't you use the school computers?" Ethan sighed.

Conner looked down sadly. "They won't let me near them."

"Oh…" Ethan replied, wincing. Conner sounded genuinely upset by the fact he was unable to learn this stuff. "Well… maybe Dr. O would let you use his computer… I mean… he breaks his computer all of the time. And he's a teacher, if you claim it is for schoolwork he can't say no."

"And you'll help me?" He asked hopefully.

Ethan let out a sigh, stupid conscious, stupid Conner puppy dog eyes… "Fine."

"Yeah!"

Convincing Dr. O to lend his computer to Conner wasn't as hard as either had expected. After Ethan mentioned it was either that or Conner would be forced to join science club, Tommy agreed that computers were easier to replace than science labs and begrudgingly turned his laptop over to the younger man. No one bothered asking why Conner couldn't use his own computer, though they probably should have.

You see, Hayley had connected a lot of things through Tommy's computer that related to the Dino Lair underneath his house. But she'd done it without his knowledge, and it didn't take Conner long to accidentally mess it up, since next time Hayley logged into the Dino Thunder Power Ranger computer system, all she received was a black screen with "Hello World" displayed in the corner.

Hayley was not that pleased but nothing had been erased, so she could fix it, and Tommy was just happy nothing had exploded. He was also happy Conner got a C+ on his first Computer Science test, indicating he was passing and probably not going to transfer into his club anytime soon. Ethan was rather pleased he managed to get Conner to actually program something, but his happiness ended there because as soon as Conner came running to him with a copy of XNA 1.5, exclaiming how he wanted to learn to make video games, Ethan ran as far away as he could muster.

A guy could only do so much and there weren't enough milkshakes, cups of coffee or even guilt in the world to allow himself to aid Conner in attempting to make games for his beloved Xbox 360.

"But I want to make Pong like the guy at the thing did!" Conner whined. "That's more interesting than this Java stuff."

Ethan shook his head.

Not enough in the world…

* * *

This story stemmed from when I was taking Computer Science. I somehow managed to not only bungle my way through with a passing grade, but recieved highest marks in the class for two years in a row. To this day I have no idea how this was possible. It then had me imagining Conner trying to take it and so on. There have been about four or five versions of this that I have written, but I think this is the best one.

Please Review.


End file.
